Quick intro - been playing for a year now (one year this weekend!), both acoustic and electric but pick up the Strat 90-plus percent of the time...mostly self taught at this stage..
The past couple months have been almost solely devoted to scale practice and understanding. Just love to hear someone pick up an ax and make it talk/sing, a real bluesy type of sound/feel. Scales have already enabled me to do this - perhaps it's only the vocabulary of my four year old son at this point, but it IS starting to talk in my hands!!!
When playing scales (and while "improvsising" within most scales) I ALWAYS us a pick, no problem hitting the strings quickly and cleanly. Now I'm back to strumming some chords to record and play my scale practice to.
However, when doing any type of strumming, especially on a moderate to fast tempo'd tune, I really CANNOT use a pick, just my thumb mainly to get a good paced and decent sounding strumming pattern. A pick just really screws me up especially on up strokes. Can a thumb have more rythm than a wrist? :roll:
Is thus just a "normal" part of learning to properly use a pick? Should a person FORCE themselves to get more proficient at using a pick for strumming? I know I LIKE the crisper sound when using a pick....
what i like to do when "practicing" is just fooling around with my guitar and seeing what kind of sounds i can make by changing small things. so i think you should be able to do both, pick and no pick and increase your "vocabulary."
Get some thin flexible picks, there like training wheels for strumming. :wink:
I'd say a .60mm or thinner, I like the Jim Dunlop nylon, there easy to hold onto.
I think I started off with a .46mm it was really thin and very flexible.
Tim Madsen
Nobody cares how much you know,
until they know how much you care.
"What you keep to yourself you lose, what you give away you keep forever." -Axel Munthe
use the dunlop's and use both finger picking and regular pick while practicing and playing.
I think you need to force yourself to learn to strum with a pick! I say this because many of the great guitar players I love to listen to are very good at nailing full chords in the middle of the lead runs (Jerry Garcia is a great example of a lead guitarist that seamlessly rings out a full fat rich chord in the middle of a wicked run). So, when you nail the root note at the end of a run try and play that note as a full chord! Practice practice practice.... you'll get it :)
PK
Jeff Beck, a great guitar player, does not use a pick.
since we're not he, I say learn to use a pick with your rythm playing.
if you can strum with a thumb, which is an awful habit if you want to be serious, then you surley can handle a pick.
practice, dont over think, let the musioc flow through you.
it will come.
best wishes.
Man you got some good advise, the only thing i would add is to make sure that while strumming with a pick, keep the pick itself under control. It is a good idea to start with a slimmer pick, but if you try switching from strum to single note with thin picks, you may notice some difficulty with the single notes at that point due to the flexibility of the pick. Also start slow and steady, even if your upstokes sound bad, keep timing consistent, learning bad timings is hard to unlearn. THere are tons of things to do though and this is just one of those things. do what you will, but always experiment.
"What's the point of callin' shots;
This cue ain't straight in line.
Cue ball's made of styrofoam
And no one's got the time." (Garcia/Hunter)
